Mother, son found several days after their deaths in Fort Recovery home

Authorities found the bodies of an elderly woman and her son at their Fort Recovery home Friday night after a concerned friend reported seeing neither of them for several days.

Mercer County Sheriff's deputies forcibly entered the home at 403 S. Wayne St. shortly before 9 p.m. after a family friend arrived on the scene and said the son had threatened suicide several days earlier.

They first found 92-year-old Dorothy L. Williams dead in her downstairs bedroom and David R. Williams, 63, dead in his upstairs bedroom.

Mercer County Coroner Dr. Tim Heinrichs was called to the scene and estimated the woman had been dead in bed 10 to 14 days, the victim of apparent natural causes.

Heinrichs ruled the son had been dead two to three days, the victim of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was found seated in a chair with a .20-gauge shotgun nearby. There was no note.

"The manager of a local restaurant called us," Sheriff Jeff Grey told The Daily Standard. "David Williams went there every day but he had not been in for several days."

A 1961 graduate of Fort Recovery High School, he had served in the U.S. Army and was formerly employed at Sheller Globe in Union City.

The mother, who reportedly had been ailing in recent months, and her only child lived together for years. Ralph Williams, the husband and father, died in September 1978.

The only survivors are the woman's brother and two sisters, all of whom reside out of state.

Deputies were assisted at the scene by Fort Recovery Police Chief Jared Laux.